Generally, a block toy that is capable of improving children's creative minds is mainly configured such that it has a plurality of convex protrusions formed on one or more sides thereof and a plurality of concave insertion grooves on another side thereof, so that the children play with the toy block by fittedly inserting the protrusions into the insertion grooves.
Unlike a press-fit toy block as widely used until now, recently, a block toy that uses a magnet as a block-coupling means has been developed and obtains much popularity.
A conventional magnetic block toy as shown in FIG. 1 includes a block 10 having magnets 16 of N and S poles respectively disposed on the both end portions thereof and a metal ball 12 as a magnetic material adapted to couple the block 10 with another block 10, thereby assembling a variety of articles. By the way, in a case where the metal ball 12 is not adopted as a coupling means, the end portions 35 of the block 10 having the same polarities as each other can not be coupled to each other according to their properties, so that there occurs an inconvenience that one of the blocks 10 should be turned by 180°
So as to the problems the conventional magnetic block toy has had, thus, there is provided another type of the conventional magnetic block toy as disclosed in Korean Patent No. 545658. According to the conventional practice, a magnet 16 is inserted into a space portion 20 within a block 10, as shown in FIG. 2, and if the block 10 faces another block 10, the magnets 16 of the space portions 20 of the blocks 10 are rotated to couple each other.
However, under the above structure of the conventional practice as mentioned above, the internal space portion where the magnet is rotated should be necessarily needed, thereby failing to reduce the size of the block, and even though the block is made small, the magnet in the block should be small, thereby failing to obtain a substantially strong magnetic force. Furthermore, even after a unit article is assembled, it can not be coupled to another unit article. To solve this problem, the internal space portion may be more enlarged to insert a plurality of magnets thereinto. In this case, however, there occur some problems that the reduction of the block size can not be achieved and children can not recognize the corresponding block having the plurality of magnets therein.
So as to couple the blocks with no metal ball as a magnetic material, on the other hand, there is provided another type of conventional magnetic block toy as disclosed in Korean Utility Model Registration No. 404030, wherein a magnet 16 is inserted into the end portions of the block 10, the magnet 16 being exposed on each end surface of the block 10 and having two or more polarities on the surface thereof, as shown in FIG. 3, so that the magnets 16 are rotated horizontally in the block 10. However, the magnets 16 are not gently rotated by the frictional force against the an outer cover 11 of the block 10, and the magnet 16 having the two polarities on one surface thereof is expensive, which undesirably raises the total production costs.